12 CUBA AND PORTO RICO 



The great southward-flowing air-currents from the 

 United States, which bring our blizzards in winter, some- 

 times invade the West Indies, and are there known as 

 "northers." They extend to Panama and the Great 

 Antilles, but barely, if at all, reach the Windward Islands. 

 The absence of a breeze in the West Indies is ominous. 

 Sometimes in these periods of atmospheric quiet the 

 barometer falls rapidly, and in a few hours great hurri- 

 canes ensue. Few years pass without a disaster at one 

 point or another of the normal storm-zone. Nearly all 

 the islands have been more or less devastated by these 

 visitations. Barbados, Jamaica, St. Thomas, Guadeloupe, 

 and Cuba especially have suffered severely. Houses have 

 been uprooted like trees, fortresses demolished, ships car- 

 ried far inland, plantations strewn with huge blocks, 

 islands broken into reefs, and reefs piled up into islands. 

 The " great hurricane " of October 10, 1786, is said to have 

 " leveled cities, wrecked fleets, and, 



" ' Amid the common woe, 

 Reconciled the French and English foe/ 



who were preparing to cut each other's throats." The 

 hurricanes are said to occur only at the end of summer or 

 beginning of autumn, when the heated surface of South 

 America attracts the cooler and denser air of the northern 

 continent. But although most frequent in August, and 

 generally prevalent between July and October, such dis- 

 turbances have also been recorded at other times. 



These winds and currents from the Atlantic Ocean are 

 neither hot in summer nor cold in winter. Their temper- 

 ature, ameliorated by the cooler waters, mitigates the 

 tropical radiation of summer and warms the northern 

 blasts of winter, and is nearly the same the year round. 

 The intense extremes of our own country are unknown, 

 the thermometer never falling to the cold characteristic of 

 nearly all the United States, nor rising to the intense heat 

 of our summers. Hence throughout the West Indies the 



